We Were Strangers
by AllISeeAreStars
Summary: Spencer isn't sure how he got himself in this situation again, but he finds himself abducted. At least this time he isn't alone, but surely this woman with him, this Hermione Granger, is delusional. There's no such thing as magic . . .
1. Insane

Chapter one: Insane

How did he get himself in this situation again? Morgan was right; he was a danger magnet. Some FBI agent _he_ was. Spencer woke slowly, an ache in his head and an uncomfortable restriction of his hands. Rope. His hands were bound by rope. He tried to move his legs and couldn't help but gasp in excruciating pain. His foot was broken. There were 26 bones in the human foot, 33 joints- 20 of which were actively articulated. There were more than a hundred muscles, tendons, and ligaments. He hated his facts sometimes as that didn't make it any less painful.

"Hey, calm down," a disembodied voice said in an English accent. London, if he wasn't mistaken, with just a hint of a Scottish overtone.

"I'm going insane," he mumbled out through a dry mouth and cracked lips.

Was this Heaven? It seemed fitting that an angel had such an accent. He was partial to accents, particularly European.

"You aren't going mad," the voice said, decidedly female," you're just as sane as I am."

He groaned and realized he had yet to open his eyes and did so. There was a single light bulb above emitting a dim light, but it was still just enough light that he had to squint and blink a few times. Across from him was a large cage, a strap iron cell very popular in the American Southwest during the frontier period. There was a girl sitting at the bottom of it, closest to him with her fingers gripping the bars. In the dim light he could tell she was average height, probably about 110lb. Long, thick brown hair in curls.

"Where are we?" Spencer asked.

"I'm not sure. I think somewhere around the D.C. area. At least, that's where I was taken. What about you?"

He swallowed to moisten his throat. It was so dry. "Quantico. We're probably still in the area then. The probability that we were both taken from the same area but both transported elsewhere at different times is very slim."

"You're taking this very well," she observed.

"Not my first time," he admitted, becoming more alert. "Besides, I think it is just now registering what's going on."

He started pulling at the ropes on his wrists, chaffing the skin past the point of bruising and starting to break the skin. He hissed through his teeth.

"Stop!" she said. "You're going to hurt yourself."

He realized she was right and he was getting nowhere so he looked around, only just now realizing how bare the room was. The floors were swept, there was nothing in the concrete room except he and the girl in the cage. No windows. One door. He'd bet the door was welded shut based on the rest of the room. A bomb shelter of sorts maybe. He tried to move again and groaned in pain, staying still for a few minutes until it passed to its dull pain when it wasn't moving.

"Are you okay?"

"How long do you think we've been here?"

"I've been here a few days, I think. You about eight hours."

He frowned, biting his lip against the pain so he could drag himself across the room to lean against the cage. "That was fairly concise for a timeline considering there's no way to see outside."

"He hasn't come back except to bring you here."

That wasn't an answer, but he supposed technically he didn't ask a question. Hotch and the rest of the team must know he's gone by now. Though, in the event of Gideon's leaving and Hotch being stabbed, none of them knew until a day after it happened. They just accepted that they weren't answering their calls. Morgan was supposed to pick him up though to drive him to work. Surely he wouldn't leave without an answer. He had Spencer's permission to break the door down.

"I'm Hermione Granger," the girl, Hermione, introduced her self to him- moving her hand through the bars in a daft attempt to shake his. The handshake was originated as a peace sign to show the hand was holding no weapon. He motioned with his bindings and she blushed, her face going slightly darker in the dim lighting, and retracted her hand.

"Spencer Reid, FBI."

Her face lit up. "Are you really? That's wonderful!"

"Doesn't really do me much good here with a broken foot and bound hands, does it?" He remarked impatiently.

There was movement and he looked behind him to where she had a small, purple beaded bag. With it, she pulled out a knife and gestured that she could fix part of his statement. He gladly held them out and she sawed at the thick ropes until they snapped. He unwrapped them from around his wrists and rubbed the tender skin.

"Thanks. How did you get away with a bag?"

"I, uh, it was hidden in my sock. I keep it there."

"That's not strange," he commented with a bit of gallows humor.

She stared at it lovingly. "It's helped me through a lot. You wouldn't believe what I have in here."

"Well, I doubt you have any water."

She frowned at him and opened the bag, putting her back to him and turning back around with a bottle of water with a label he didn't recognize, but a name he did. Evian was the most popular bottled water in the UK with about 8,480 drinkers a year. Hermione squeezed it through the bars and he took it gratefully, wondering how she fit it and a knife in such a small bag.

"We have to get out of here," he said aloud. Mostly for her benefit that he could keep her calm, though, she was being remarkably blasé about this. He supposed she had gotten the panic out of her system already, having been here for days. She looked good for being here that long.

"My cage has been welded shut," she told him, looking around. Then he was right with the welding. He looked to the door of the cell and traced the lines with his finger.

"My team will find us. I promise. They're the best."

She laughed hollowly. "If they get here before my friends do. Harry has a bit of a hero complex."

At least she had something to hold on to, as unlikely as it was. "What did he look like?"

"Short, short for a man. He was skinny, like drug using skinny, and had five o' clock shadow. Dark hair. He never spoke."

"Alright, then he may or may not come back at some point despite the welding that's probably on the door. He broke my foot for that reason then, so I couldn't try to take him down."

Hermione shook her head. "He didn't weld the door out. He chained it. And, I w-watched him break your foot."

Spencer breathed shakily. "Chains. He's a welder, he probably made them himself. What did he do to my foot?"

"Hammer," she whispered. "Twice to the top of your foot. I'm sorry."

"It will heal," he said, more to himself than her. "I think it may be possible he's trying to starve us out. Especially if he has only come down here to bring me. Mahatma Gandhi is said to have lived 21 days without food."

"We have food," she sighed. "How long do you think it will take your team to find us?"

"We have an average of a week. Add a day and a half for them to realize I'm gone at most, then a day or two extra without me. Your friends? When will they realize you're gone?"

"Harry is at my house every week, a few times a week. He's overly paranoid, we all are. He'll find us."

"Why did he choose us?" Spencer asked to himself. "I mean, I've never seen you before in my life. I'd remember."

She smiled. "Would you? Remember me?"

"I have an eidetic memory, so yes, I remember almost everything."

"Ah! Well, I don't think I've ever seen you. I own a bookstore on the corner of Ashland and Juniper."

He nodded. "Crooks Books, I've heard of it. I've been meaning to check it out, but we've been so busy lately."

"Yeah, well, I've been working on making it twenty-four hours. We have a cafe, I mostly run it by myself. Sometimes one of the guys will come by and help. Crookshanks is my cat, that's how I came up with the name."

"I can't be around animals," he said, not understanding how he could be so calm, "My team calls it the Reid Effect. Happens with kids too."

"Crooks doesn't like anyone," she told him. "He's fairly passive about most people, but he _adores_ Harry and my friend George."

Spencer frowned. "What were you doing when you were taken?"

"I-I was painting."

"Painting?" He took in her well-worn jeans with paint smears and old shirt with a band he was sure he'd never heard of.

"I was painting a few walls and decorating the shop. He came in and that's all I remember. It was Sunday."

"Today's Thursday."

Hermione sighed. "Well, that's wonderful isn't it? Luna and Harry were supposed to bring Teddy over to visit."

"I was about to go to bed, just in my apartment. My... friend... was supposed to pick me up to drive me to work. He'll know something's-" He stopped. "Why are you in a cage?"

"What?"

Spencer turned as best he could, wincing at his foot, and faced her. "Why did he break _my_ foot, but lock _you_ in a cage?"

"It's a strap iron cell," she whispered quietly.

He hissed through his teeth at his foot, trying not to make much noise and startle her. She looked at him in concern. "I have something that would take the pain away."

Spencer immediately thought of Dilaudid and grimaced, rubbing absently at the old track marks in the crook of his elbow. "I don't think so."

"It's nothing like that. It's just a potion of sorts. Liquid medicine. I-I'll sip first if that would make you feel better."

He swallowed and admitted to himself that he was curious about whatever it was. She referred to it as a potion. In Latin, _potio_ meant a drink- usually poisonous. In Old French _potare_ was a magical and medicinal drink. That was a very big difference.

"You first."

She smiled and reached into her bag again, up to the elbow, and pulled out a small wooden box of vials. Spencer choked at it, at watching something so impossible. His mind was suddenly riddled with physics and spacial laws. Though, physics did support a perfect sequence that could open portals to other dimensions. She pulled one out, a green glass vial, and held it up in cheers before taking a sip. Hermione then held it out for him to take and he shrank away from it, staring at her with a feeling he could only describe as complete confusion. He didn't like it.

"How did you do that?"

"Magic," she said seriously, pushing it toward him again. "I know it's alarming, but it really will make the pain go away. And maybe some chocolate afterwards will help."

Spencer's foot was throbbing and he wasn't sure what to do. Maybe he was going crazy just like his mother. Paranoid schizophrenics were known for hallucinations. It stood to reason that in a stressful time like this that he would come up with an intelligent, British young woman to help him.

"This is- this is insane."

Hermione sighed and in a flash, reached out to grab his shoulder and pulled him to the bars- pouring the liquid down his throat and closing his mouth where he had to swallow it. Immediately his foot was numb.

"Wh-what is that?"

"Just a simple pain relieving potion. Chocolate?"

She pulled out a strange candy package, showing a frog shape.

 **A/N: Here you go. Yes, I literally named the story Untitled because I couldn't think of an actual name. I'm sorry. I hate it, but c'est la vie, you know? Anyway, tell me what you think. Love always, Skye.**


	2. Plan

Chapter two: Plan

"Why isn't he coming down? It doesn't make sense."

"I think he was sad."

"What?"

Hermione paced her cage. "I said he didn't say anything. That wasn't exactly true. He kept saying 'I'm sorry' on a loop. He called me Grace."

Spencer sipped a flask of strange juice that she told him was pumpkin. "He might be comparing you to a family member or someone he was close to; sister, cousin, childhood friend. That would imply-"

"Remorse. Like he didn't want to be doing what he was doing, but he can't stop himself."

He would admit to being impressed. "Right. If he does come back here then we may be able to get him to let us go by playing on that."

"You're a profiler aren't you?"

He blinked in surprise. "Yes, I am. I'm in the, uh, the BAU. The Behavioral Analysis Unit. It used to be called the BSU-"

"Behavioral Science Unit, part of the NCAVC; National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes."

Spencer was definitely impressed. "Yes, I'm a profiler."

Hermione smiled. "My friend is a Minister, though not one I think you would know. Minister for Magic, Neville Longbottom. You know, when he and I met you'd never have seen it coming. He was bumbling and sweet, but very shy."

"Are you being for real? Magic?"

"Very, here." she handed him her beaded bag through the bars. He pulled it open and reached into it. His arm kept going into it and he pulled it out, examining it carefully. "Undetectable Extension Charm. I worked very hard on it and I was telling the truth when I said it saved my life. It did. And several of my friends, and I suppose in a roundabout way the entirety of Britain."

He wasn't sure what to say. "Why are you telling me all of this?"

"Because it won't matter. Once we get out of here, they'll erase your memory of anything to do with me."

Spencer frowned, not liking the sound of that. "Do they have to?"

She had been turned away from him, having paced around for hours, but she turned towards him with a strange combination of wonder, care, and... guilt. She looked as though she were examining him closely before finding whatever it was she was looking for. "No. I can make them leave you alone. You're too smart for your mind to be able to miss it and stay the way it is. Most people just accept they can't remember, or there's a haze, or something that doesn't make sense. _You_ -you would dwell on it and drive yourself barmy. Like a tongue over a loose tooth."

Spencer shivered. "And.. you can do that? Convince them?"

"I have leverage," she said quietly. "And though it's unlikely, should they ignore me, they wouldn't Harry. Or Neville."

"Friends in high places?"

"The highest."

He believed her. He also thought in some small part of his mind that he was hallucinating, but he believed her. Besides, he could explain the bag with physics. "So, why can't you get us out of here?"

"I don't have my wand. It's stupid, but I didn't take it with me downstairs to the shop that day. I was painting. I didn't think I needed it. I can do menial things, summon something from across the room, unlock something, but I can't unweld this."

"Do you think he's... like you?"

She scoffed. "Doubtful. He used Muggle methods."

"What's a-"

"Non-magic folk."

"Ah."

Hermione finally sat down again across from him, the two separated only by iron bars. "I can't believe this happened again."

He frowned. "Again?"

"Long story."

"Right, because it's not like I have time or anything."

She laughed near to the point of hysteria and he felt good for having made her. "We were in a war, revolving around Harry and a madman, Voldemort. His people.. the Death Eaters.. caught us because there was a taboo on his name. They took us to his manor where they questioned us. Tortured me. We were lucky though."

"Lucky?"

"I sent a jinx at Harry that distorted his face. If they had realized it was him they'd have killed us all."

Spencer looked at her in slight horror. Lucky indeed. "We were on a case in Georgia. We had caught up to him and JJ and I split up. God, I was so stupid. It was _my_ idea and she got attacked by man-eating dogs and I was kidnapped by a disturbed man with Disassociative Personality Disorder. He drugged me, tortured me, killed me and brought me back."

"JJ, that your girl?"

His face flushed. "No. She, uh, we went to a football game once, but she's just my friend. Her son is my godson."

"How old is he?"

"Henry is one year, four months, seventeen days," he looked at his watch that the Unsub hadn't taken, "fourteen hours and two minutes old."

She chuckled. "Well, I don't think I could go down to the hour, but my godson, Teddy, is six years and four months old."

"Harry's son?"

"Depends on how you want to look at it," she said. "He lives with Harry and Luna and calls them Mum and Dad, but Harry and I are his godparents. His parents died in the war."

"Hotch has a son, Jack, around that age. October seventh is his birthday."

"Teddy's is April 16th. He was born less than a month before the last battle. The Final Battle."

Spencer nodded, not knowing what else to say. "What else do you have in your bag?"

She laughed. "I honestly am not all that sure. Loads of candy, I know that. Ron had an obsession. I have a tent, loads of books, clothes, water, not much pumpkin juice, an Invisibility cloak, some-"

"Invisibility cloak?"

"It's Harry's. I'm mostly just holding on to it for him."

"Does it actually-"

She nodded, digging into the bottomless bag and pulling a shimmery material out. Spencer felt it in his fingers, awed at it. Physicists had been working on making invisible clothing a reality and had, on some level, succeeded. But nothing like this. Still, could be logically explained.

Hermione yawned and Spencer noticed how tired he was.

"You should get some sleep," he told her. "I'll keep watch."

"No, that's okay."

"Hermione, go to sleep."

She looked at him for a long time. "Okay. Will you- will you wake me if he comes back?"

"I promise."

*

Spencer woke with a start from a faceless nightmare and glanced around anxiously. Hermione was still asleep, leaned against the bars most uncomfortably and making soft snoring sounds. He sighed in relief, letting his heart rate slow back down from its adrenaline high. He had to figure a way out of here. Or someway to get a message out. He doubted Hermione had a phone. Or if she did, he doubted they'd get much signal being in a concrete box. He wasn't claustrophobic, but he didn't like it.

Hermione woke up an hour later while Spencer was reading a book from her bag, _The Golden Trio._ She had told him she had leverage in the Wizarding World, but he never imagined how much. She was a hero. The Brightest Witch of her age.

"Ugh!" was the first thing out of her mouth. Then she grabbed at her bag to pulled out a bottle of water, guzzling half of it. Then she sat back and breathed heavily from lack of air when she was drinking. She smacked her lips a few times before looking over to him with a tired face.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"Just peachy," she replied. "It's not like I'm stuck in a small room, in an even smaller cage, without a wand, and _with_ a total stranger for whom I'm risking the Statute of Secrecy. Thank you for asking."

He frowned, this was completely different than the girl he'd been in here with for a day. "Hermione? Calm down."

"I can't, I-I have to get out of here or something."

"We'll get out, but you're starting to go into a panic attack. Hermione-Hermione tell me more about Harry and Ron. Your friends. It says here you had a werewolf as a friend?"

Her body language softened at the names and she made more of an effort to breath calmer. "Remus, he started out as our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. He was best friends with Harry's father and godfather. He's Teddy's real father."

"Teddy? Tell me about Teddy."

She breathed out. "Teddy is the sweetest thing. He likes to prank people though. He's terrible around George. George and his twin, Fred opened a joke shop. In our fifth year-" She stopped and pulled her bag into her lap and started going through it. Then she stopped with a thoughtful look and turned to him.

"If you drank another pain potion, do you think that you could take him down? If you were able to catch him by surprise?"

Spencer frowned. "I-yes. I think. I don't know. It depends on him."

Hermione nodded. "Do you think he's alone?"

"I think he most likely has a partner, the brains of the operation, who tells him what to do. He might be handicapped in some way. If they're recreating a scene, his foot might have been broken in the original scenario. He probably lives away from the man who took us as a way to distance himself."

"Do you think if you had the tools, you could get me out of here?"

"Yes."

"You're positive?"

"I have three PhD's, one of which is in engineering. Yes, I can get you out of there."

Hermione pulled an assortment of things from the bag, and placed them in a neat row. Then she was pacing like a caged animal again, her hair crackling with blue electricity. That... could be the lighting. "Whizzbangs, they sort of explode and chase you around. Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder does exactly what it sounds like. Portable Swamp, literally just makes a swamp appear and can be quite difficult to get rid of. There are Dungbombs, don't touch those, and loads of explosives. We could use them to lure someone down here, then you stand by the door under the Cloak and catch whoever it is by surprise."

"What if it's both of them? We can't take them both. And if one comes down and we get out and another is waiting what do we do?"

"It's better than being stuck down here and waiting for someone to find us despite there probably not being any sign of where you are or even that our abductions were connected. I'm sure you know the odds."

 **A/N: So, yes. In another story of mine, she was able to send wandless patroni to Harry and Remus. In this one, she cannot. If she doesn't have her wand, she can't really do much magic. I thought that would be good balance as I thought I was being a bit free with wandless magic in Walking Away Clean. Hope you like it. Love always, Skye.**


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